V

V is a new character introduced in Devil May Cry 5. He is the game's third playable character. In later parts of the story, he is revealed to be the manifestation of Vergil's human side, and he later merges with his demon side, Urizen, to turn back into Vergil.

Development
According to Hideaki Itsuno, new characters like V and Nico were the first designs they came up with in the early phase of the game's development. Feeling that DMC5 needed a new protagonist that was completely different from Dante and Nero, Itsuno wanted V to have a very different gameplay style that made players attack and defend separately, and experience a whole new gaming style. V's playstyle and how he fights was thought out before any other detail of the character. Itsuno acknowledged that V seems to be a "complex" character to players, but his style makes him a powerful character overall.

Itsuno stated in an interview that V caused the most trouble when creating Devil May Cry 5. There were times where the developers kept wondering if adding V was really necessary due to how difficult it was to develop him.

When creating V's character and story, it was a conscious decision to make V didn't necessarily have a specific relation to Dante and Nero. V's character was based on the game's setting, and the staff was satisfied in how V's inclusion achieved a balance with Dante and Nero.

Appearance
V is a tall, slender young man with pale skin and dark green eyes. He has chin-length, natural white hair with long bangs swept to left, which sometimes obscures his eye, but his pact with his demons turns his hair jet-black and covers his entire upper body and his neck in black tattoos.

V wears a long, open sleeveless leather coat with the sides tied together by strings and a sewn-in, corset-like vest in the front. He also wears black pants with a silver chain made up of skulls on the right side of his belt and a fingerless glove on his right hand. V sports many accessories, including a tooth pendant around his neck, silver ring on his left middle finger, and a plain leather bracelet and a spiked bracelet on his left wrist. Unlike most characters in the series, V wears black sandals instead of boots. V carries a silver cane, due to his body slowly decaying and making it hard for him to move, and a brown, gold-embroidered book, containing poems by William Blake, with a large "V" insignia in the cover.

When he was separated with Vergil by stabbing himself with Yamato, he was naked and covered in a purple haze as his entire upper body and his neck in black tattoos were quickly formed.

Personality
Currently what little is known about his personality, V is very fond of poetry, often recites lines when speaking to people, to the point where Griffon calls him "Shakespeare", and has a dry sense of humor. V greatly treasured his book of poems, possessing it since he was a young boy.

V is a man shrouded in mystery, possessing unknown motives and has knowledge about a powerful demon and his coming to the Human World. Due to his odd appearance, behavior, and abilities, many people often found V to be unsettling and questioned if V is really a normal human despite his frail look. While V is willing do morally questionable things and lie to his allies, V possessed a genuine desire to save the world from Urizen and help humans, even at the cost of his own debilitating health.

Due to possessing Vergil's memories and fully aware of his origins, V often reflected over his "past self", such as remembering how prideful Vergil in the past and was the type to be irritated at being called a "dead weight". Despite acknowledging himself to be a part of Vergil, V also seemed to disassociate himself from Vergil and deeming him to be full of "delusions" and expressed a deal of regret towards Vergil's actions.

Story
After being freed from Mundus's control, Vergil was able to escape the Demon World, but, his body was weakened and crumbling from battle after battle. After stealing Nero's Devil Bringer to regain Yamato, Vergil then returned to his family's burned mansion in Red Grave City. Fueled by his desire to defeat his twin brother Dante and desire for power without having to be hindered by human thought or emotion, Vergil stabbed himself with Yamato to separate his human half from his demon half, sparking the birth of "V" and "Urizen". In addition to being humanly frail and weak, V was also left with three physical manifestations of Vergil's trauma from his time as Nelo Angelo, taking the forms based of Mundus's minions - Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare.

Devil May Cry 5: Before the Nightmare
Knowing Urizen's resurrection is nearing, V goes to go Grue's Celler to find J.D. Morrison in order to get into contact with Dante. Before entering the bar, V assaulted at random man with Griffon in order to obtain money to pay for Dante's services. Upon meeting Morrison, V ask to take him to Dante and hands him the bloodstained money. Although wary of V and Griffon, Morrison accepts the payment, especially wanting to avoid V and Griffon hurting more people to collect more cash, and takes them to Devil May Cry.

At the shop, V introduces himself to Dante and explains that he wants him to to stop a powerful demon that is about to resurrect in Red Grave City. While Dante is confident that V's job would be easy, V claims that Dante the demon is different from the others he fought before because the demon is Dante's "reason for fighting."

Morrison provided a helicopter to take V and Dante to Red Grave City. V was also grateful for Morrison recruiting Trish and Lady. Upon arriving inside Qliphoth tree, V hopes to attack Urizen before he is fully resurrected, but realized that Urizen had awaken as they were traveling up the tree. Believing V to "dead weight", Dante orders V to leave, which he complied with, much to Griffon's shock. Unsure of the chances of his allies in defeating Urizen, V wants to get Nero as "insurance", despite knowing Nero's Devil Bringer arm was recently ripped off and Griffon's own protests. Using the helicopter, V quickly arrived to Fortuna and found Nero at the hospital just as he awoken from his coma. After introducing himself, V explained to Nero that it was Urizen that stole his arm and he hired Dante subdue him. V asked Nero to join them and goads him by pointing out Nero's wounded pride. Although Nero was suspicious of V, Nero agreed to help him to get his arm back.

After getting Nero's gear, V and Nero return to the Qliphoth tree and spotted Dante fighting Urizen from a distance. V warned Nero not to underestimate Urizen since he gained a lot of power after taking Nero's Devil Bringer. V went ahead of Nero, using Shadow's ability to carry himself since moving was becoming more difficult for V since he was dying. V and his familiars dealt with demons coming the tree to make things easier for Nero. Once Nero caught up with them, V told him go ahead and leave the other demons to him. When V and Griffon arrived to Urizen's throne room, V saw Nero and Dante struggling to beat Urizen as the ground began shaking. Dante yelled for them to run while he hold Urizen off, thought V had to dragged a stubborn Nero, who insisted on staying and help. When debris blocked the path to Urizen, the two met up with Morrison and told him what happened as tentacles started sprouted from the group and attacking people. While Nero wanted to fight, V demanded he retreats and revealed that the world will end after a month. V encouraged Morrison not lose hope and Nero to get stronger since he is only person that can defeat Urizen besides Dante. V and Nero agreed to meet up again in a month, with Nero returning to Fortuna to train. V choose to stay in Red Grave City, lying to Nero that he will be collecting information in the meantime.

As the days passed, V observed the Qliphoth tree growing bigger as it sucks more human blood. Griffon suggested V should evacuate the city to slow Qliphoth's growth, but V rejected the idea because he believed one one will listen to him and he doesn't have authority or time to organize a city-wide evacuation. While V tried the his best within his capabilities, he felt great regret not being able to do more. When Griffon questioned if Nero will return, V commented that Nero isn't the type to accept a "losing streak", causing an amused Griffon to quipped about it. V contemplated over his beloved book of poems, which also predicted Qliphoth's appearance. V bitterly recalled his former self's delusions and how he lied Nero since he already knew everything about Urizen. Although he wanted to avoid too much movement since his body was eroding, V resolved to help the humans and to minimized the damage as much as possible until Nero returns.

Devil May Cry 5
V is also seeking Sparda's sword from Dante for unknown reasons and he even attempts to kill Dante saying that he should never had existed. However this was just a ploy by V to wake Dante up from his unconscious state, of which he had been in for a month. V stated that he knew how stubborn Dante was, and that it seemed like the only way.

Later, after Dante defeated Urizen and being helped by Nero, V finally decided to serve his own purpose to confront Urizen in his weakened. knowing he and Urizen are one of the same, he stabs Urizen with his cane before Dante could stop him and was engulfed into a blue light as both V and Urizen merge into one person which is Vergil himself. V was mentioned by Nero after Dante had clashed with Vergil which he informs him that V had already merged with Urizen into Vergil himself and during the final battle between both Nero and Vergil as father and son.

Powers
Unlike Dante and Nero, V has very little demonic power and seemingly is a normal human, instead his abilities comes from his pact with his three demons and is capable of casting a huge variety of magic spells. One spell called "Royal Fork" creates many duplicates of his cane to attack many enemies at once. He can also teleport to an enemy to strike them with his cane directly. V also appears to be able to enter a state similar to Devil Trigger, which causes the black ink in his hair to disappear, revealing his natural white hair, and allows him to augment his familiars' strength and Nightmare from long distances.

Familiars
V has the ability to summon demons to fight on his behalf. When not called upon, the demons are embodied as tattoos on V's body and in his hair, turning it from white to black. When they are summoned, the corresponding tattoo to each demon will disappear and his hair turns back to its original color.

V's familiars are actually physical manifestations of Vergil's trauma from his time as Nelo Angelo, taking the form of Mundus's demon minions. Due to this, V described his demons' abilities to be "dream-like" since they are only able inflict pain yet unable to kill.

Griffon: This avian monstrosity can always be found somewhere around V, usually flapping its beak with some inappropriate jab. Griffon brings the thunder with electrified long-range attacks, or can give V a lift if close by. Griffon is the only one that knows human language and acts as the interpreter for Shadow and Nightmare so others can understand them.

Shadow: This demon familiar usually takes the form of a quadruped beast, only to shapeshift into blades, needles, and all manner of nasty weapons to act as vanguard. Through Shadow, V can also move at faster speeds than normal. V can also ride on Shadow as a form of transport.

Nightmare: V can unleash his full power to call upon this gargantuan demon. When summoned, Nightmare may crash onto the battlefield like a meteorite, or burst through parts of the environment to heed the call. Its sluggish movements belie unsurpassable strength and nigh-invulnerability. Wherever Nightmare appears, its massive fists or brutal laser beams are the last thing enemies ever see. In his normal size, Nightmare is 3.5 meters tall, but is capable growing even larger.

Gameplay
In terms of combat, V uses his cane and book with the letter "V" on it as weapons. He's also capable of summoning different types of demons that will aid him in the battle and casting a huge variation of spells. Due to his unique gameplay style, V described to be a "tricky" and strategic character to use in battle. When playing as V, he has shorter health bar than Dante and Nero and less knockback resistance, so maintaining a distance is key while his familiars are fighting and as long V doesn't take damage, the battle can continue. When quickly evading or attempting to ride on Shadow or fly with Griffon, V must have his familiars close to him or call them back to his position.

V's demons have their own health bar and can be strengthened and learn new abilities over the course of the game. However, V's familiars cannot kill other demons and V must land the finishing blow. When enemies are close to death, they will start to stagger and turn white with a violet glow, signalling for V to finished them off with his cane.

The demons are manually directed by V, but Griffon and Shadow can fight automatically, but having them fight automatically will use up V's D.T gauge. With Nightmare, summoning him consumes the D.T. gauge and it also decreases when Nightmare attacks. Due to Nightmare's slow movement, Nightmare essentially cannot transverse the ground very well and isn't ideal to use when surrounded by enemies when the D.T. gauge is low. Nightmare also fights automatically, but can be directly controlled by V when he climbs on his shoulder and pierces him with his cane. As long as Nightmare is controlled by V, V can kill enemies off using Nightmare. In very narrow spaces, Nightmare cannot fully emerge and will only stick out his head to fire his beams. Due to the many different summoning entrances when summoning Nightmare, secret passageways can be found when Nightmare burst through the environment.

If V takes too long to finish off enemies, the demons will regain partial health, forcing V to attack them again. The familiars can take damage and will revert to their core state after taking too much. In their core state, they cannot attack and cannot be summoned again for a certain amount of time. If Griffon and Shadow are in their core state, summoning Nightmare is a quick way to revive them. Another way to quickly revive the familiars from their core states is for V to stand close to them, the closer V is the faster the familiars can revive.

In order to fill V's D.T. gauge, V has to read his book and the closer V is to his opponents while reading, the faster the gauge will fill. However, V's movement will slow and leave him vulnerable to enemies.

Etymology
The letter "V" is the Roman numeral for the number "5", referencing V's appearance and importance in the fifth installment of the Devil May Cry series, Devil May Cry 5. Furthermore, the first words spoke by V in promotional material was "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.", which is the fifth proverb from William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell." V is also the first letter of Vergil, the name of the man who he was once part of.

Trivia

 * Due to his likeness, many fans made the comparison between V and actor Adam Driver, particularly Driver's role as Kylo Ren from the Star Wars franchise. However, the character of V was being developed before Star Wars: The Force Awakens had been released.
 * Some sentences said by V are quoted directly from William Blake poems, such as "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence." and "I curse my stars in bitter grief and woe, that made my love so high and me so low.". Additionally, one of Nico's tattoos also quotes a William Blake poem titled "Eternity".
 * At the New York Comic-Con 2018, Itsuno also stated that V was actually his favorite character.
 * V's EX Costume that is unlocked after completing the game is a reference to Gilver, having a green color scheme and the patterns of Vergil's trench coat. This is due to the fact that V and Gilver are essentially the same being, "Gilver" a disguise that Vergil donned in Devil May Cry Volume 1, whilst V is the true manifestation of Vergil's Human side.